


What We Never Said

by MagitekUnit05953234



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Discussions of death, Gen, Gladio and Noct actually talk to each other, Grief/Mourning, Mentioned Ignis Scientia, Mentioned Prompto Argentum, Wow, Zegnautus Keep, zine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 14:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20390920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagitekUnit05953234/pseuds/MagitekUnit05953234
Summary: “You think I want you to be unhappy? That I want you to put down your life for something you hate?”“Isn’t that whatyou’redoing?”





	What We Never Said

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally available in the Ever At Your Side zine. It was completed sometime in June 2019. It was supposed to be about friendship and just ended up sad.

It takes Noctis awhile to realize that Prompto is asleep. Noct pulls himself up off the edge of the cot and carefully draws the scratchy white blankets over his friend, who clutches at the cloth in his sleep with white-knuckled hands.

Noct watches him sleep for a few moments before stealing out of the room, passing Ignis and Gladio on his way to the old employee lounge down the hall. Noct settles in an uncomfortable folding chair by the set of vending machines in the back, digging into a bag of pretzels he jiggled the locks on the vending machine to retrieve. The standalone AC unit in the corner judders and wheezes, blasting out needlessly cold air in the already freezing room. Noct shivers and tries to distract himself with his pretzels.

Every time he closes his eyes, Noct sees Prompto strung up on that cross, or the look in his eyes when he confessed to his origins… like he expected them to hurt him for it. Noct sees Luna, gasping for breath as Leviathan’s storm raged around them both. He sees Ignis, head bowed and eyes burned beyond saving. He sees Insomnia.

He loses his appetite pretty quickly.

There’s a sound at the door, a shuffling of quiet footsteps, and Noctis looks up from his half-empty bag of pretzels to see Gladio lingering in the doorway. They meet eyes, and Noctis breaks contact first.

“You don’t have to follow me,” Noct says. “I can take care of myself for a bit.”

Gladio comes in anyway, sitting down heavily in the chair next to Noct’s. He holds out his hand, palm up, and Noct stares at it uncomprehendingly for a moment before realizing that Gladio is asking for a pretzel. Instead of shaking some out into Gladio’s hand, Noct just hands the whole thing over.

“Thanks,” Gladio tips the little bag into his mouth, and Noct shudders at the thought of the sheer amount of pure salt Gladio must be consuming.

They sit together for a bit, the silence broken on occasion by Gladio crumpling and uncrumpling the empty pretzel bag in his hands.

“You’re wearing the Ring,” Gladio says eventually, after the sixth —Noct counted— time he smoothed the bag out on his knee only to crunch it back up into a ball in his fist.

“Yeah,” Noct flexes his fingers, and the burn radiating from his right hand up through his arm and into the rest of his body flares slightly. “I didn’t have much of a choice. Bet you’re glad though, right?”

“That’s not—” Gladio plants his elbow on his knee and rests his forehead in his hand for a few seconds before dragging his palm down his face. “I’m not happy about any of this.”  
  
“Could have fooled me,” Noct isn’t sure where this vindictiveness is coming from, not when victory is so close, but he’s so tired and he’s so tired of being in pain, and the last meaningful conversation between the two of them ended in Gladio shoving Prompto to the floor and accusing Noctis of being a coward. It’s hard not to think about that in a time like this. “This is just what you wanted, right? I’ve got the Ring on, and I’m stepping up. Being a _ real king _, right? We go get the Crystal, fix the daemons, take down Ardyn for everything he’s done, then we all go home and I wither to death for a throne and a Ring I’ve never even wanted. It’s all working out just the way it’s supposed to. Right?”

“You think I’m happy about that?” Gladio reaches over and takes Noct’s hand with both of his own, his fingertips just brushing the Ring in all its destructive might. “You think I want you to be unhappy? That I want you to put down your life for something you hate?”

“Isn’t that what _ you’re _ doing?”

“Noct,” Gladio leans down, pressing Noct’s knuckles to his forehead. “I don’t hate you. I’ve never hated you. I’ve always wanted to make you strong, strong enough to face what fate has forced you into. I thought… it doesn’t matter. I let my own problems get in the way of being there for you. Of making you strong in the right ways. Of doing what was right.”

“Gladio—”

“I’m sorry.”

“I— what?”

“I’m sorry,” Gladio presses, pulling away from Noct only to take hold of his shoulders and look him in the eyes. Noct can’t stand the eye contact, so he glances away. “I was _ wrong _, and it hurt you. It’s still hurting you... and Ignis and Prompto. Ever since Altissia I’ve been dragging all of you through things that I never should have.”

“I had to take responsibility,” Noct blinks, drawing his gaze back up when Gladio’s grip tightens on his shoulders. “I had to keep moving forward, right? You weren’t… you weren’t wrong. I have to do what I have to.” 

Gladio’s lips thin. He seems to mull something over, the gears in his head turning almost audibly. He finally sighs and releases Noct. He stands, turns, and wanders over to the pillaged vending machines. The pretzel bag falls to the floor. “You’re allowed to be scared, Noct. To not want to do any of this. Duty or not.”

“What changed your mind?” 

Gladio laughs, low and quiet but still there nonetheless. He paces slowly in front of the vending machines, illuminated in the cold blue glow of the machines’ idle lights. He’s haloed in it— a massive planet eclipsing a distant, frigid star… or just a man in front of a common convenience, tired and scarred and yearning for a home long gone.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about losing you,” Gladio murmurs it, his voice rumbling from his chest and shuddering in the air between them. “Losing you like we lost Insomnia. Like we lost the king. Like we lost my old man. The whole time you were wandering this damned place without your weapons and without us there. Without me to shield you… every second I was terrified you would die here.”

Noct had been, too. When he put on the Ring, he had felt his body and soul being torn apart and scrutinized by every king who had gone before. When he was pulled from an alcove and pinned to the ground by a jittering, horribly glitching MT, he had barely stopped it from tearing out his throat with spiked gauntlets. When the floor fell out from under Noct, he had been certain that the few terrified seconds of falling through the air would be his last moments.

“Me too,” Noct swallows thickly. He had done everything he could to push that fear to the back of his mind, focused only on finding Prompto and reuniting with Gladio and Ignis. Now that he has accomplished that, he finds that his hands tremble at the thought.

“Hey,” Gladio catches the shaking, it seems. “Are you okay?”

“Your dad,” Noct grabs on to something, anything to change the topic and avoid dwelling on the anxiety roiling under his skin. “Did you ever… I mean when my dad died I— all I did was make all of you have to deal with it. But you never even mentioned Clarus. Not until now.”

“Worst thing my old man ever taught me,” Gladio sighs audibly. “Amicitias don’t cry over Shields who did their job.”

“Gladio—”

“I shouldn’t have listened to him. All that ignoring it did was make me angry. At the Imperials, at the gods,” Gladio pauses, his face unfamiliarly soft as he runs his gaze over Noctis. “At you, for not pushing past it like I thought I did. He thought he was making it easier on me and Iris, but I still shouldn’t have.”

“We’re kind of stupid, aren’t we?” 

“Sure,” Gladio crosses back over to Noct in a few long strides. “We have been, but we don’t have to be. Let’s destroy the daemons and take back Lucis together. I’ll be at your side. No wavering. Not this time.”

Gladio extends his hand, and Noctis takes it. 

The light of the Crystal washes the chamber in a fragile blue light. Raw power ripples from the rock, thickening the air until it feels almost like they’re breathing in water sparking with electricity. Gladio could drown.

Prompto and Ignis are on the floor a few feet away. Ignis sleeps against the platform’s railing, recovering from his turn on watch as they wait in vain for Noctis to return. Prompto has his arm wrapped around Ignis’s shoulders, awake despite the Gladio urging him to sleep before his turn. His eyelids nearly drift closed every few minutes before he shakes himself awake, eyes darting across the chamber warily.

The Crystal has shown no signs of releasing Noctis in the last two days. Gladio is beginning to think that they won’t see him again for a long time.

“I’m so stupid,” Gladio reaches forward, presses his hand against the Stone.

It’s cold. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on Twitter [@compromisedunit](https://mobile.twitter.com/compromisedunit).


End file.
